Canon Pixma TS9020 Wireless Inkjet All-In-One Review

Table of Contents

Introduction, Design & Features

For years now, we’ve been reviewing slightly different iterations of the same “MG”-family Pixmas from Canon. (The MGfamily is, or was, Canon’s consumer line of photo-centric Pixma printers.) Like most printer makers, each year Canon simply added a feature or two, up-ticked the number in the printer’s name (say, from Pixma MG7620 to Pixma MG7720), and then offered it as a new, or more precisely, an “updated” product.

Even though this is common practice among the printer set, reviewing more or less the same printer over and over can get monotonous. We’re happy to report that those days are, at least temporarily, over, where Canon’s Pixma MG-series photo printers are concerned.

Enter the imaging giant’s new Pixma TS series, the MG series’ replacement. The first round of TS Pixmas consists of four all-in-one (AIO) print/scan/copy models. From the least expensive, with the shortest list of features, to the most expensive and feature-rich, the new TS series AIOs are the Pixma TS5020 Wireless ($99.99 MSRP), the Pixma TS6020 Wireless ($149.99 MSRP), the Pixma TS8020 Wireless ($179.99), and the topic of this review, the flagship Pixma TS9020 Wireless. (Computer Shopper will be reviewing most or all of these models in the coming weeks.) The Pixma TS9020 lists for $199.99, though as we were writing this, we found it at Canon U.S.A. and various Canon resellers for $179.99.

The differences in features among the new models include smaller LCDs and paper capacities as you slide down the list. Today’s test unit, the top-dog Pixma TS9020, for example, has a 5-inch touch screen, while the Pixma TS8020’s display is 4.3 inches. This top-of-the-line model supports Ethernet and Near-Field Communication (NFC), but some of the less-expensive AIOs in the series do not. (Of the lot, only the Pixma TS9020 has Ethernet, and both the Pixma TS9020 and TS8020 support NFC.) The three top models have two paper trays, while the Pixma TS5020 has just one—you get the idea. The bottom line in all this is that the Pixma TS9020 is the best-equipped of the four.

While the MG series Pixmas had their issues (no printer is perfect, to be sure), they printed some of the best-looking photos among consumer photo printers. That was especially true of the six-ink Canon Pixma MG7720, the model that the Pixma TS9020 replaces. The Pixma TS9020, like that earlier model, uses six ink cartridges—the same six cartridges, in fact, which unfortunately translates to the same high per-page running costs. As we'll get into later on, it’s not unusual for consumer-grade photo printers (or any grade of photo printer, for that matter) to have a high cost per page (CPP). Even so, this Pixma’s per-page ink cost carries over and diminishes its value as a document printer, especially if you print more than a couple of hundred document pages per month and are hoping to use this printer as a dual-purpose photo/text workhorse.

Even though the Pixma TS9020 is somewhat expensive to use with all kinds of output, it does offer the best of both worlds from a quality perspective, in that it prints high-quality documents and photos. In keeping with the light-use concept, though, like the MG-series Pixmas none of the models in this new series comes with an automatic document feeder (ADF). Not being able to send multipage documents to the scanner without user intervention will make this a key omission for some home and small offices.

In the end, we have to make the same general statement about this printer that we have about more than a few MG Pixmas in the past. We like the Pixma TS9020 as a photo printer, but the ability to print documents and perform limited scanning and copying should be considered add-ons, conveniences. If you need these features regularly, you'll want to consider another photo-centric AIO, such as the Epson Expression Photo XP-860 Small-in-One or one of Epson’s other consumer photo AIOs. If printing photos is your primary concern, though, and you need quality prints, you can’t go wrong with the Pixma TS9020, so long as you can stomach the cost of its ink.

Design & Features

From a design and style standpoint, the Pixma TS series is a far cry from the curvy Pixma MG series. Canon calls the new style (among other things) “sleek,” but while the Pixma TS9020 we're reviewing here is smaller than the Pixma MG7720 (shown below at left), we call it, well, boxy. Indeed, the Pixma TS9020 (below, at right), with its sharp right angles, is the boxiest of all four of these new Pixmas…

In addition to the two-tone white-on-black model shown above (which was the color scheme of our review unit), you also have the choice of red-on-black…

At 14.7 inches across by 12.8 inches from front to back by 5.6 inches high, the Pixma TS9020 is plenty small enough to fit on most desktops and short enough to fit under most shelves or cabinets. It's also easy to push around, weighing in at 14.7 pounds. However, back by popular demand (according to Canon), this Pixma comes with a rear paper tray, in addition to the front paper drawer…

Some of the early MG series models had this rear feeder, too. As we'll get into in a moment, this is a highly useful addition, but know that it does almost triple the Pixma TS9020’s height when open. Furthermore, to fit letter- or legal-size paper in the front tray, you must extend it, increasing the machine’s depth by an inch or so, depending on the paper size. And the output tray, which extends automatically as needed, makes the footprint a little longer still…

As mentioned, like its MG-series predecessors, the Pixma TS9020 lacks an ADF for feeding multipage documents to the scanner platen. This was always a major complaint about the MG series for us, especially on an AIO like this one that lists for $200. (Yes, it was discounted on Canon’s site by $20 as we wrote this, but...still.) If you’ve ever scanned a thick report (or a stack of single-page documents, for that matter) on a flatbed scanner one sheet at a time, you know how tedious the process is. If you need this feature on a photo printer, you should consider one of Epson’s several Small-in-Ones, such as the XP-860 mentioned earlier. But you'll have to be choosy; some of those don’t have ADFs, either.

Connectivity options abound on the Pixma TS9020, comprising an Ethernet jack on the back, Wi-Fi inside, and a single-PC direct connection via USB, as well as numerous mobile options and cloud sites. They include the peer-to-peer NFC protocol, which allows you to print or scan to your mobile device by simply touching it to a hotspot on the printer, as shown here…

Other mobile options include the Canon Print app, Pixma Cloud Link, and support for Apple AirPrint and Google Cloud Print. It's possible to make connections to other popular cloud sites (among them, OneDrive and Dropbox) through the Pixma Cloud Link app. You can also print directly from several Canon digital cameras via Wireless PictBridge, as well as from various flavors of SD card. The port for the latter is located on the left side of the chassis, next to the input tray (outlined in red below)…

You print from or scan to memory cards and make copies, as well as set up several of the features discussed so far, from the big touch screen, which, aside from the power button and the NFC hotspot, comprises the entire control panel…

The screen measures 5 inches on the diagonal. The control panel (and the rest of the printer's face above the output tray, for that matter) tilts up automatically when your print or copy exits the print path. You can also angle the panel portion upward by hand, making the screen easier to read and poke when looking at it from above.

In addition, like the Pixma MG7720 before it, the Pixma TS9020 can print label designs on appropriately pre-surfaced CDs and DVDs via an included tray that slips in under the output tray, as shown in this Canon-generated photo…

Finally, the Pixma TS9020 comes with a bundle of user-friendly software, among the offerings the familiar My Image Garden for managing your images and documents. My Image Garden, combined with Creative Park Premium, also comes with several “Fun Filters” for distorting images in amusing ways, as well as many document templates, such as greeting cards, calendars, and software for creating optical disc labels. And, of course, you also get image-correction and -enhancement software for making rudimentary changes to your images prior to printing (rudimentary, at least, compared to tweaking in Photoshop).

It may look wholly different, but aside from the all-new chassis and the re-addition of the rear-input tray, this new Pixma’s feature set is much like that of its MG-series predecessor.

Setup & Cost Per Page

Few of the AIOs we’ve tested over the past few years have been difficult to install, and this is especially true of Pixmas. Getting this one out of the box and removing the minimal amount of packing material was a snap. We connected it to our network via Ethernet for testing purposes, but the Pixma TS9020 also supports Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) for one-touch wireless connections. The software found the Pixma on our network right away, and after installing the six ink cartridges and loading the front paper tray, we were up and printing, scanning, and copying in about 20 minutes.

As with any inkjet printer with more than the standard four ink tanks—cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, or CMYK—calculating the precise cost per page (CPP) is not only a challenge, but next to impossible. In this case, the Pixma TS9020 comes with, in addition to the CMYK inks, gray and pigment-black inks, and assessing when they kick in during any print job really isn’t possible. For example, the pigment-black ink enhances text, making it blacker, among other things. Hence, our CPP numbers to follow cover only the four standard inks, but keep in mind that each time one or both of the two additional colors come online (most often, while printing photos), the running costs will shift a bit. Suffice it to say that if the per-page cost of ink the most important factor in your purchase, this (or any other five- or six-ink photo printer) is likely not the right choice.

That said, Canon offers two yield sizes for the cartridges for this printer, standard and XL. All six of the standard-size ink tanks sell for $12.99 on Canon’s site. The black cartridge holds about 300 pages and the color ones, combined with the black tank, are good as a set for about 350 pages. Using these numbers, we calculated the Pixma TS9020’s CPP at 4.3 cents for monochrome pages and color pages at 15.4 cents.

Keep in mind that these numbers are based on ISO standards, which are based on a percentage of page coverage nowhere near the 100 percent coverage of a photograph. For example, the monochrome text documents that manufacturers use to calculate the number of pages in a cartridge are typically as low as 5 percent coverage. In any case, you can get slightly better CPPs when using Canon’s XL tanks. The XL black tank for this printer yields about 500 pages and sells at Canon for $19.99, as do the color and gray cartridges; they are rated to yield about 700 pages. Using these numbers, we estimate that monochrome pages will cost you about 4.1 cents each, and color prints about 12.7 cents.

Unfortunately, these high running costs are the nature of the photo-printer beast. When you use the high-yield cartridges with Epson’s Expression Photo XP-860, for instance, the running costs work out to about 4 cents for monochrome pages and 11.4 cents for color. These numbers are high enough, in our opinion, that if you need to print anything more than a couple of hundred monochrome text pages each month, in some scenarios it will be more economically sound to use a secondary printer (maybe a laser, maybe a more ink-efficient inkjet) just for that, reserving this one for photos and artwork.

Paper Handling

The TS9020 has two paper input sources, a 100-sheet cassette up front and a 100-sheet upright tray in the back. Each tray is rated, alternatively, for 20 pages of thicker photo paper…

As mentioned, to accommodate letter- and legal-size paper, the input cassette must be extended manually. Printed pages land on a small output tray that extends automatically as needed. Canon doesn’t estimate the capacity, which will depend on the thickness of the paper stock. During our tests, its capacity seemed no higher than 20 to 50 pages, depending on the weight of the media…

During our print and copy tests, the print path worked flawlessly, without any paper jams or other hiccups.